


Endless Night

by SuiteJayne



Series: Night and Day [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Anal sex (kind of), Angry Sex, Angst, Angst and Porn, Episode: s04e02 The Lying Detective, Grief/Mourning, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Masturbation, POV John Watson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-09
Updated: 2020-07-09
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:21:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25169866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SuiteJayne/pseuds/SuiteJayne
Summary: Set at the start of S4E2: The Lying Detective. During therapy a grieving John flashes back to one sleepless night when he found himself making an ill-advised visit to 221B Baker Street.
Relationships: Mary Morstan/John Watson (Past), Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Series: Night and Day [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1985095
Comments: 8
Kudos: 35





	Endless Night

**Author's Note:**

> This is pretty bleak but hopefully falls into the “hurts so good” category. Some lines of dialogue and the hug are borrowed from the show.
> 
> Updated on 12/26/20: Finally tidied up the tags!

“Do you talk to Sherlock Holmes?”

John’s mind freezes for a moment, then he recovers.

“I haven’t seen him,” he lies. “No-one’s seen him. He’s locked himself away in his flat. God knows what he’s up to.” 

_God, shut up, John. You’re laying it on too thick._

He glances across the room at Mary, who is smiling sympathetically. She forgave him anything when she was alive, and the same seems to be true now that she is dead. Her presence is reassuring. John is grateful.

“Is there anything you’re not telling me?”

“No,” he manages a smile.

Of course there is. A few nights ago John woke at three. He had drunk a quarter of a bottle of whiskey and downed a couple of diphenhydramines in an effort to forcibly shut down his body and mind. It had not worked. Sitting in the therapist’s sunny office, he remembers the gradual return to consciousness. He remembers turning on his side and reaching for Mary, and the nauseating recollection of what had happened hitting him again. This is the worst of the many bad parts of each day--the moment after waking when he remembers. 

Suddenly their shared bed became intolerable and he rose and went quickly to the kitchen. Rosie was staying with friends. John could, and would, get wasted. He’d poison himself if he liked.

Ice cubes cracked and split as he poured whiskey over them. He gulped it like water and poured another. Then he set his glass on the counter and left the flat. The ice melted into the untouched liquor.

He found himself on Baker Street. The street was silent, peaceful. Even Mary was absent. The front door of 221B was slightly ajar, and John pushed it and went inside, ascending the staircase with a minor stumble. He heard Sherlock before he entered the flat, his unmistakable voice carrying out the open door.

“But I need to meet him,” he was saying. “And I know how to do it. I have to provoke him, stir up the hornets’ nest. I’ll do it publicly; then there’s no way he can ignore me.”

Sherlock was in his armchair, of course, his head resting on the back of the chair and his long body stretched out like a rope draped over the seat and onto the floor. He stared at the ceiling. Was he talking to himself? Not exactly; Bill Wiggins was there, but he didn’t appear to be listening. Rather, he was nodding off in the kitchen, a heroin-induced stupor settling on him in the midst of pouring tea.

John cleared his throat and Sherlock sat up with a start, like a push puppet that droops bonelessly when its button is pressed and snaps to attention when it is released.

“John--”

“You look awful.”

“Yes.”

“You’re high.”

“Yes.”

“Are we out of biscuits?” came a slurred voice from the kitchen.

“Bill, leave at once,” Sherlock said, his eyes on John.

Bill blundered into the room.

“Oh, it’s you,” he said. “Cup of tea?” He looked appraisingly at John. “Something stronger? We’ve got all sorts that can help you avoid reality a bit longer.” 

“Bill, get out,” Sherlock repeated emphatically. Bill smirked and padded toward the door.

“Laters,” he said, still carrying his teacup and saucer as the door banged shut behind him.

Sherlock rose and tentatively approached John. He wore pajama bottoms and dressing gown. His chest and feet were bare. He looked thinner, paler, than when John had seen him last. He was unshaven, unwashed. His eyes were black in the gloom, alight with intelligence as always but glazed with the high. The two men regarded one another in silence. John had the strange impression he was looking through some distorting medium--glass, water--as though Sherlock were inside an aquarium. Then he stepped forward to grab Sherlock’s arm and pushed his sleeve up to verify the presence of track marks. When he let it fall it hung limply at Sherlock’s side. 

John had barely been conscious that he was coming here. He had no plan and nothing in particular to say. Confronted with the sight of Sherlock, he felt warring emotions. This man needed help. He was ill; his drug use was ravaging him. The doctor in John urged him to get Sherlock hydrated and fed, give him a bath, and dress the wounds on his arm with antibiotic ointment. But another part of him felt obscurely gratified; Sherlock looked like John felt. John’s sole aim each day was to persuade himself to live for Rosie’s sake. It looked like Sherlock was going to die of John’s grief instead of him. It felt good to think about it. Indeed, as he thought about it, John’s anger came seething back like flood waters rising to choke him. He forced the feeling back into the recesses of his mind. 

Sherlock’s eyes flicked across John’s face and body, and John could tell he was recording scraps of information, deducing as if his life depended on it. They’d had no contact for a couple of months, and this was Sherlock’s way of catching up. He suddenly understood that his absence affected Sherlock in much the same way that Mary’s death affected John. It was like the sun had dropped out of the sky. Endless night. The two of them were stumbling around in the same darkness.

“Where’s Rosie?” Sherlock asked softly.

“Don’t pretend you care,” John replied, his anger flaring, dissipating the compassion that had crept into his heart.

An expression flickered across Sherlock’s face so quickly John couldn’t name it. Pain, anger, sadness? Sherlock opened his mouth, then seemed to think better of saying anything. Instead, he reached out quickly and took John’s hand. It felt like an intrusion, but John didn’t take his hand away. Instead, he found himself moving closer. He stepped forward with heavy limbs as though he were wading through neck-high water and allowed Sherlock to fold him in his arms and hold him. He wanted this affectionate touch, needed it, and resented it. He resented it so much he started trembling. He felt strangely bound by Sherlock’s gentle embrace, as if his arms were chains. The seconds trickled past.

“It’s okay,” Sherlock said, and John felt tears burn his eyes.

John half laughed, half sobbed.

“It’s _not_ okay.”

With that the spell seemed to break. He stepped out of Sherlock’s arms and put his hands on the taller man’s chest. He pushed him backwards towards the sofa, then with one hand gripped Sherlock’s throat and forced him down onto his back. 

_What’s the plan, here, mate?_ John asked himself. Was he going to hit Sherlock? Strangle him? Fuck him?

His body seemed to know what his mind couldn’t fathom. John shed his jacket and climbed on top of Sherlock, pulling his arms out of his dressing gown. He bent to kiss him on the mouth. Sherlock tasted bittersweet, like tea and sugar and hunger. John sucked and bit Sherlock’s lower, then his upper lip. Sherlock’s mouth softened and opened and their tongues met; John pulled away from the kiss and buried his face in Sherlock’s neck and then his armpit, inhaling his familiar scent, gripping his hair and tugging it hard. Sherlock moaned and John felt himself hardening. It had been years since they had touched each other like this, and he’d had no intention of it ever happening again. But their bodies still seemed to fit together as John lay on top of Sherlock, unbuttoning his shirt so that their skin could slide together. 

John dragged Sherlock’s pajama bottoms off, shed his own shoes, trousers and underpants, and lay back down on top of him. Their cocks pressed together, Sherlock’s hardening too, and John moved his erection against Sherlock’s belly, precome slicking their skin. He pushed Sherlock’s hair, lank and unkempt, back from his face. His skin seemed stretched tighter over his cheekbones and his eyelids looked fragile, almost translucent. His eyes glittered. They were wet. In fact, John realized, he was crying. 

John looked up to watch Sherlock watch him as he retreated down the other man’s torso to lick and suck his nipples, and then further to bite at his lean sides. Sherlock wove his hands into John’s graying hair. He kept them there as John climbed up his body again to kiss him deeply. John reached down to grab Sherlock’s cock; Sherlock inhaled sharply at the touch and let out his breath in a soft groan as John stroked him.

“I’ve missed this,” he said at last.

It was a miscalculation. Typical, really, of a man who always seemed able to shred others’ goodwill with an ill-timed remark. John let go and sat up on him, pushing his shoulders back into the sofa. Then he leaned in close and pressed one hand over Sherlock’s mouth, speaking softly and menacingly with his nose almost touching Sherlock’s.

“No, you don’t get to say that,” he said. “Actually, don’t say anything. Just shut up for once in your Goddamned life.”

Sherlock nodded. His eyes were wide. His pupils had swallowed the irises whose eerie lightness used to mesmerize John, as if Sherlock’s soul really were shining through them. He was now looking at John steadily, meaningfully, unblinking. Tears seeped from the corners of his eyes. 

John did not want to look into his eyes anymore. He raised his body off Sherlock’s and turned the other man onto his stomach, slipping a sofa cushion under his pelvis. He pushed his cock between Sherlock’s thighs, grinding it between them. The thought floated through his brain that if he was going to do this, at the very least, he needed a condom. This man had been injecting himself with street drugs for months and was apparently cohabitating with another junkie. But at the same time, John just didn’t care. All the usual signposts-- _good idea, bad idea, right, wrong_ \--seemed to have disappeared. He was at sea, scanning the darkness for a lighthouse he was sure had once been there.

 _And whose fault was that--all of it?_ John reminded himself. He spread Sherlock’s legs and positioned himself at his arsehole. He spat on his hand and wet his cock. He nudged Sherlock open just slightly with the head, felt the skin give and stretch around the tip. But he knew that saliva would not be sufficient lubrication and stopped. 

“Go on,” Sherlock said just then underneath him. “Hurt me, John. I want you to.”

And John wanted to also. His face prickled with heat. His best friend, the man who’d become his lover, had died. And then, just as John had painstakingly reconstructed his future for the second time, Sherlock had resurrected himself. John had duly forgiven him, made a new place in his life for this man. And Sherlock had promised--promised--that he would protect Mary. He had lied.

He started to ease forward minutely into Sherlock. Then John seemed to feel Mary’s breath on his neck and heard her voice in his ear.

“Don’t, John,” she said. “You will damage him, and he won’t seek care.”

John sat back, then he leaned forward and held Sherlock down, pushing his face roughly into the sofa. With his other hand he grabbed his erection in his fist and gave it several hard pumps. He came with a groan on Sherlock’s back. Then he turned the other man’s body over so that they were facing each other again.

“I hate you,” he said at the same time that Sherlock said, “I love you.”

Sherlock’s face seemed to go blank like a light going out. His body went slack even as every part of John’s tensed. He lay still, pale against the upholstery as if floating on a dark pool, and watched as John stood, dressed, and left without another word.

\--

“What are you looking at?”

“Nothing.” John returns to himself, or to what is left of himself. The therapist looks quizzically at him.

“You keep glancing to my left.”

As if she were directing him to do so John looks again at Mary. She looks sad. Is it because of what John has done, or what he has yet to do? He holds Mary’s gaze a second longer. _I want to be absolved. But it’s not over yet, is it? Keep your forgiveness safe for me. I’ll need it._


End file.
